A car: is it a means of transportation, a source of fun and enjoyment, or a 3,500 pound land missile full of chaos waiting to be unleashed? How about all three? And working on your own car? Don’t even get me started on how that can go wrong. Lord knows I’ve been there.
Today we want you to tell us all about the times you absolutely fucked up your own car, and it was your fault. We’ll be gathering the best, worst and most notorious stories for a big roundup this week or next.
Welcome to Countersteer, our new reader-driven feature for 2016.
With this comes another change to how we do things around here: as of today, Answers of the Day is dead. Maybe forever, maybe just for now, only to be brought back later with much fanfare like the McRib or the next RX-7. But we’re replacing it with something we hope is funnier, more shocking, more substantive and more driven by the experiences of you, the readers.
AOTD’s been around for years and we’ve all but entirely ran out of good questions to ask. More than that, it was borne of an older age on the Internet, one where this site was judged not by traffic or unique visitors but by clicks, which meant a daily top 10 list formatted as a clickthrough gallery. We haven’t done that for some years now anyway, thank god.
There are superior ways to leverage the incredible knowledge base of the Jalopnik readership, so I think it’s time to try something different and hopefully better. You all, and the Internet as a whole, deserve more than a daily top 10 listicle in 2016. (I hate listicles anyway.)
So we’re going to gather your best stories the way our dearly departed pal C.A. Pinkham did on Kitchenette, or the way Deadspin’s Adequate Man does. Except with cars. And in this case, mayhem.
What’s the worst time you fucked up your own car, either in a wreck, a race, or a failed attempt at wrenching? Bring us your worst. We’re ready.
Photo credit Shutterstock
Contact the author at patrick@jalopnik.com.